


the best revenge

by Katbelle



Series: to make a happy life [3]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Best Friends, Domestic Fluff, Epiphanies, Falling In Love, Friendship, Friendship/Love, M/M, Minor Injuries, Stick is a dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 15:30:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4792763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katbelle/pseuds/Katbelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stick pays Matt an unexpected visit and is not amused by what he learns. Foggy is even less amused when he learns that Stick paid a visit. And Matt's in serious trouble, boy is he in trouble. So, basically, <em>nihil novi sub sole</em>.</p><p> </p><p>  <em>"Frannie," Stick spits out, and Matt frowns. "You went and fell in love. With <em>him</em>, of all people, for Christ's sake, Matt."</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	the best revenge

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/4501.html?thread=9060757#cmt9060757) at the kink meme.
> 
> For the record: I'm currently writing the next part of this series, and this fic is a timestamp from it. Foggy's temporarily staying with Matt, because his own place is inhabitable for reasons I won't disclose now. ;)

**the best revenge**

_The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury._  
Marcus Aurelius

***

"And remember, next Saturday, 4 pm sharp," Joy reminds him for the third time since he picked up her call. Matt's not sure how she got his number. Not from Foggy, that much he is sure of; Foggy wasn't pissed at his grandmother anymore, just mildly annoyed, but he wouldn't have given it to her. So, Anna, probably. Maybe Candace. "I'm making the macaroni and ham casserole that you like."

Matt's mouth waters at the mention of the dish, and so it is doubly impressive that he manages a weak "there's no need to trouble yourself, Mrs. Connor."

"Oh, darling," Joy sighs. Matt imagines that she shakes her head on the other side of the call. "It's no trouble if it's done with love. Macaroni and ham casserole, and a pecan pie. You're entirely too skinny, Matthew."

Pecan pie. There was pecan pie at the party, but he didn't stay long enough to eat any. "Foggy says the same."

"Then I'm glad Frannie and I agree on one thing at least." Matt hears her huff into the phone. She probably laughed. "I'll see you both in three days. And please, Matthew, for the love of God, come in one piece."

She disconnects only after she guilts an honest 'I promise' from Matt. That woman is scary, Matt muses for the umpteenth time as he pockets his phone. She's always appeared scary to him, even before he had any sort of an idea who she truly was. Now he's just glad that she likes him. And she does, he's sure of that; her apology was honest and heartfelt, and she was trying so hard to make it up to him. To _him_ , not Foggy, though it was Foggy that was her family and who was still mildly annoyed with her.

It’s been almost a month since that disaster of a birthday party that Matt steadfastly refuses to think about. It’s not like it matters to him, really, what he learnt then. It doesn’t change the way he sees Foggy or his family, doesn’t change the fact that Foggy is the best person Matt’s ever met, that Foggy is just _good_. It doesn’t change the way Matt feels about him, doesn’t change the fact that he loves his family and that they — surprisingly, for a reason Matt cannot even begin to fathom — love him in return. It changes nothing. It changes--It changes…

_Nothing._

Matt shakes his head and climbs up the stairs to his floor. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing they can change, it’s nothing that they knew about, it’s nothing and it doesn’t matter. What matters is that they’re still together despite all that Matt’s done, that Foggy is a good person and the greatest thing that ever happened to Matt. What matters is that they’re moving forward and they’re working out their problems, and that Foggy broke someone’s nose for Matt and thought it an entirely reasonable reaction. 

Matt smiles to himself as he searches his bag for his keys. What matters is that

 _there’s someone in his apartment_.

Oh.

Oh _no_.

Matt steels himself as he turns the key and unlocks the door. He drops his bag by the door and slowly walks to the living room. “I don’t recall extending any kind of invitation towards you.”

“Your locks are shit,” Stick says, sounding smug. He’s sitting on Matt’s new sofa — a horribly uncomfortable nightmare, Foggy claims — and he’s nursing a bottle of beer. “Your beer’s better this time, though.”

“It’s not mine,” Matt snaps. Then thinks about whose that beer is, who bought it and dragged back home from a grocery run three days earlier. He wonders what Stick’s reaction will be. “It's Foggy's.”

"The kid has good taste." Stick hums, then gulps down the rest of the beer, his lips catching on the rim with a pop. He puts the bottle down on the coffee table and tips his head back. He takes a deep breath and says, “Frannie’s been here recently.”

And he’s not wrong. Foggy’s been here in the morning and last night and every day for the past week and a half, which was when he caved and moved in, temporarily, for as long it would take for his apartment to be once again made habitable. Just a week and a half, and the scent of Foggy’s shampoo and Foggy’s aftershave and _Foggy_ was already everywhere, encompassing every single part of Matt’s life. Even Matt’s sheets smelled like Foggy, because it was Foggy who did laundry this past Sunday and he added his favourite fabric softener.

Not that Stick needed to know any of that.

Not that Stick didn’t know that already.

“Get out of my apartment,” Matt says instead, carefully. 

He doesn’t want to fight. No, okay, that’s not exactly true. He itches for a fight, his skin prickles with the need to do something, the anger bubbles just under its surface and he wants Stick out of here. He wants him out of his apartment and out of his city and out of his life, but that’s never going to happen now, is it, even if he makes Stick leave and he’ll never come back he’ll _still_ be a part of Matt’s life, forever, because Foggy is a part of Matt’s life and Matt prays prays _prays_ that Foggy will stay.

But it’ll be stupid — stupid, stupid, stupid — to provoke a fight today. If he does, they’ll destroy half of the apartment again, and while Matt doesn’t care, he couldn't care less, he knows Foggy will. Foggy’ll want to know what happened, and the last thing Matt wanted is to have to tell Foggy that Stick was here.

“No, I don’t think I will,” Stick says. He crosses his arms over his chest. “You’ll let him go.”

Matt barks out a disbelieving laugh. “What?”

“Frannie,” Stick clarifies, not that he needed to. It makes Matt cringe, hearing the affectionate nickname that Foggy’s grandmother had for him fall from Stick’s lips. “Give him up, Matty.”

“Don’t call me that,” Matt says, his voice getting three degrees colder. “Is this another round of your ‘no attachments’ bullshit? War is coming, you need heartless soldiers, push the people you care about away to be effective, that kind of crap?”

“War _is_ coming, kid,” Stick says and gets off the couch, “and you and I both have our part to play in it.”

“I am _not_ a part of your _anything_.”

“But you are,” Stick murmurs, “you just don’t know it yet.” 

Matt sets his jaw and says nothing to that. Don’t be stupid, don’t be stupid, don’t let him provoke you, not again. You're more than that. You're better than him. The last thought appears with a voice attached, surprisingly that of Joy Connor. Ah, Foggy's grandmother. Scary, scary woman.

"Get _out_ of my life," Matt forces out through clenched teeth. He'll bait you, don't take it. Stay calm. Make him leave. "I'm not interested in your 'soft things and relationships make you weak' shit."

"They do make you weak," Stick states. He's starting to sound self-satisfied again. "Why do you think I cut Joy loose? Annie?"

There's a trace of a warm note in Stick's voice when he says 'Annie' and it takes Matt a second to connect that softly spoken name with Anna. Mrs. Nelson. Foggy's mum. But also Joy's daughter, and _Ray's_ daughter, _Stick's_...

"Funny," Matt says before he even knows he's going to, before he manages to bite his tongue, "Joy left _you_ from what I've heard. She dumped you and divorced you and took your daughter away."

"Semantics," Stick says. He sounds calm, but Matt can hear his heartbeat, he heard it speed up a notch. Stick's getting angry. "What matters is that I cut my ties, and so should you, and so you _will_ , because--"

"Because I'm a warrior, heir to the Spartans, baddest of the bad-asses?" Matt spits Stick's own words back at him. "Because you need a soldier?"

"Because not everything is about you!" Oh, he's most definitely angry now. It's a first; they've fought before, they've argued and hurt each other, but Matt's never managed to make Stick angry. Various degrees of disappointed, sure. But truly angry? "There will be a war and something dark is coming for you, and _that_ makes you dangerous. Useful, perhaps, but dangerous to them. To Anna. To _Frannie_ ," Stick sneers.

"You care now?" Matt snorts. "Relationships make you weak and yet you expect me to believe that you _care_?"

"I expect jack shit from you, at this point," Stick says, "but yes. I do care."

Thump-thump-thump, goes his heart, faster than normal, but steady, annoyingly goddamn steady. _Truth._ It's true. True, true, true. And it's that, that truth, that sets Matt off. Stick's had his reasons to leave Matt when he was a kid, sure, but protecting him wasn't one of them. Matt's told himself — convinced himself, even — over the years that Stick leaving didn't matter, that it meant nothing. It meant nothing because Stick didn't care about anything or anyone, human connections, friendships, family, they were liabilities. Stick didn't care. Couldn't or didn't know how, or just didn't want to.

But it isn't true, and has never been true. Stick does care. He can and knows how, even if he might not want to. It's simply _Matt_ that he has never cared about and still doesn't.

It's Matt that means nothing.

"I don't believe you," Matt says, rushed. Stick smacks his lips, but before he can answer, Matt carries on, angry, aiming to _hurt_ , "you might care, but that's not all there is. This _is_ about me." He takes a step closer to Stick. "It is about me, because they accept me. Your wife. Your daughter. _Foggy._ They want nothing to do with you. And yet, they care about _me_ while they hate _you_ , and you can't stand that, can you, the fact that I--"

The blow to his jaw cuts off the rest of the sentence and Matt stumbles backwards. Well. This is a first as well, a brand new life achievement: provoking Stick into a fight. Making him angry enough to throw a punch, and not even a particularly good one, his hands are shaking, he's so furious that his hands are shaking.

Good.

Matt clenches his fists and raises them, blocks a few blows, gives back as good as he gets. Remembers what Joy told him about Stick, aims for his weak spots, oh yes, Matt knows about them now. But Stick's fury — while making him a tad less precise than usual — also drives him forth; he punches Matt and sends him crashing into his new coffee table. 

"You'll get them all killed!" Matt scrambles back to his feet and Stick grabs him by the lapels, slams him into a wall. Provoking him might have been a miscalculation. Not one of the brightest ideas Matt's had as of late. "You don't deserve--"

"I know!" Matt shouts back, and manages to shake off Stick's grip and push him away. "You think I don't? I _know_!" There's blood running down his chin and he can feel his cheek swell. Not good. "I don't deserve them! I've done _nothing_ to deserve them! They're good people, and Foggy--" Matt licks his lips. It stings, hurts, his lower lip must be split. "He's--he's kind, and caring, and he's worth _everything_. I'll never deserve him, or his friendship, _I know_! He deserves so much more than someone who's _broken_."

He's trembling. And not just in anger, though that's a substantial reason. He hates Stick. Foggy could get back home any moment, his meeting with a witness could have already ended and he could be on his way up the stairs to Matt's apartment, and Matt wouldn't even hear, because blood was pounding in his ears and in this one moment he hated, hated, hated Stick.

Get a grip on yourself, Murdock, God.

Stick doesn't hit him again, which is surprising in and on itself. No, Stick throws his head back and laughs, and Matt becomes uncomfortably aware that that's the first time he's ever heard him laugh. This is the last reaction he was expecting.

"Useless and compromised. This is hilarious," Stick shakes his head, but his voice is the furthest thing from amused, he sounds annoyed halfway to pissed, "what the fuck am I supposed to do with you, kid."

"What--"

"Frannie," Stick spits out, and Matt frowns. "You went and fell in love. With _him_ , of all people, for Christ's sake, Matt."

Matt freezes. "No," he says. No. No, no, no, absolutely not, that's ridiculous. In love with Foggy. In love with Foggy? No. He loved Foggy, of course he did, he loved him, he _loved him_ , the best and brightest thing in Matt's life, the one _good_ thing, but Matt wasn't--In love with Foggy. "I didn't."

In love with Foggy.

"Like fuck you didn't," Stick says. "When you talk about him, your heart picks up as if it wanted to burst out of your chest and spare you this miserable fate. Your skin gets warmer, your palms sweat, and all of that when he's not actually here."

In love with Foggy?

No.

_No._

No, but...

"You're not getting my blessing," Stick carries on, either unaware or disinterested in Matt's internal freak-out. "In fact, what I want, is for you to get the hell away. For Frannie's sake. Unless you wanna get him killed, in which case it'll be entirely your fault and you'll only have yourself to blame."

_In love with Foggy._

"Love is a disease and distraction, Matty. A luxury you can't afford, not with what's coming."

He was in love with Foggy.

He was _not_ in love with Foggy.

No way.

There was just... _no way_.

"Like you would know," Matt mutters. Like Stick would know. A man incapable of experiencing any higher emotion. But that's not true, is it. Just because he never cared for Matt--Well. He cares about Foggy. He didn't lie about that, at least.

"Yeah," Stick says and sounds wistful, but there's a tone of surety and finality to his words that reminds Matt of Foggy, the way he was before he walked out of Matt's apartment and slammed the door behind, "I do."

***

The plus side: they didn't completely trash the apartment. Oh, and the bleeding stopped, somewhat, a bit.

On the flipside, the coffee table is beyond saving, the right side of Matt's face is ungodly swollen, and he cut his left side when the bottle Stick left on the coffee table broke under him after Stick sent him crashing into said coffee table. There goes his promise to Foggy's grandmother.

There's no way he'll be able to hide this from Foggy. And he's done lying.

So.

Matt cleans up most of the apartment before he hears Foggy on the stairs. He's humming, so the meeting must have gone well — or wasn't a disaster and a complete waste of time, at least. Matt picks up the last few shards of the bottle off the floor and gets up, throws them into the bin, and opens the fridge door and dives inside it nose first just as Foggy opens the front door and walks inside. Even if Matt couldn't pinpoint exactly where Foggy is based on his heartbeat, he'd still know the moment Foggy walks into the living room and takes in the recent destruction, because he stops humming.

"How about grilled salmon for dinner, mhm?" Matt asks in lieu of a greeting, face still firmly hidden behind the fridge door. Let's dose the shock.

"Fine by me." Foggy sighs. "Please tell me someone broke in and tried to rob you."

"Why would you want me to say that?" Matt shoots back. "Broccoli on the side?"

"I hate broccoli and you know that." Matt smiles at the disdain in Foggy's voice. "And I'd love to hear that it was a burglar, because I'm pretty sure that's the nicest and most tame explanation as to what happened here."

So much for making sure the shock comes in small doses — Matt keeps forgetting that Foggy's imagination is much wilder and more colourful than his. Matt sighs and emerges from behind the fridge, earning a gasp from Foggy in return. "It wasn't a burglar. If you don't want broccoli, you'll have to pick something else yourself. I'm feeling like broccoli tonight."

Matt leans against the kitchen island and tries to make sure Foggy sees more of his left profile. Sadly, that means Foggy now has the perfect view of Matt's left side in general, and might notice the cuts on the left side of Matt's torso and stomach. Well, not cuts per se — Matt changed the slashed shirt into a new one — but a few bloodstains from those of the cuts that stubbornly wouldn't stop bleeding.

"Matt," Foggy says slowly. His heart rate is elevated, he's worried. Worried about Matt. He's always worried about Matt, has always _been_ worried about Matt, but lately more so than ever. Matt will never in his life do enough to deserve that. "What happened?"

Matt turns his head to look in Foggy's direction and hears Foggy suck in a breath. So his face really must look terrible, that's good to know. Maybe he should invest in some foundation after all. "Stick paid a visit."

'Your grandfather' is a phrase that will never make it past his throat, he's sure of it.

"Stick. _Stick?_ " Matt nods. Foggy strides over to the counter and gently touches Matt's face. No, wait, no, he doesn't touch it; his fingers hover a hair's breadth away from it, as if unsure. "He did this to you?"

Matt smiles wryly. The question reminds him of a similar one, after the fight with Nobu. Fisk? Fisk did this to you? That was the moment Foggy's worry won over his anger, and for that one moment Matt thought that maybe he hadn't broken them beyond repair. "We had a disagreement."

Foggy drops his hand and clenches his fist. "Where is that asshole, Matt, because I need to--"

"Foggy, it's okay," Matt interrupts him, not wanting to hear the rest of the sentence. _Kill him._ That's what he'd say. Foggy wants to kill Stick, Matt doesn't know _why_ — he doesn't _want_ to know why — but Foggy _does_ , and Matt doesn't want to hear him say that. Doesn't want to hear Foggy's heart truthfully beat thump-thump-thump. "I told him to leave. He won't come back."

He most certainly will come back, but Matt doesn't have to tell Foggy _that_.

Foggy sighs again. "It's very much not okay, but let's agree to disagree. For now," he adds with a hint of a warning. "Where are you hurt?"

"Just the bruised cheek," Matt lies.

"Uh-huh," Foggy says, "and the red stains on your shirt are just ketchup."

Busted. Matt lets Foggy take his hand and lead him towards the sofa. Matt sits down and takes a breath while Foggy murmurs something under his breath and heads to the bathroom. The sofa smells like Foggy, he's been sleeping on it for a week and his smell seeped deep into it, ingrained itself in it. It'll continue smelling like him even after he's gone, smelling like everything that's good and right, smelling like _home_.

Well _fuck_.

He was _most definitely_ in love with Foggy.

Matt recoils. Fucking hell, he's so far gone, how did he not know that? How did he not notice? How on _earth_ did _Stick_ know that before him?

Foggy comes out of the bathroom with something in his hands. "Shirt off, Murdock."

And there goes Matt's heart, somersaulting in his chest. This isn't good. No good at all. It's actually very, very bad. "You say that to all your roommates?" Matt asks, trying for a casual joke.

It must work, because Foggy laughs. Or maybe Matt just looks so pitiful that Foggy humours him. "Just the ones that are bleeding from wounds they don't want to disclose." He shakes the thing in his hands. A tube, it's a plastic tube. "Come on, Matt. It's not like I haven't seen you shirtless before."

His voice is steady as he says it. So is his heartbeat. Matt unbuttons his shirt and shrugs it off. Foggy's fingers immediately fly to the cuts in his side and he exhales softly. "The good thing is," Foggy says, "you don't need stitches. Bad thing, no reason to call Claire and no pretext to have her over for dinner."

Matt's never been less interested in having Claire for dinner. "Shame."

"I know!" Foggy grips Matt's chin and turns his head to the side, so that he can look at Matt's bruised right cheek and a more than likely black eye. "She's missing out."

Foggy lets go of Matt's chin and reaches for his tube, opens the cap and extrudes some sort of a cream onto his palm. It smells funny.

"What is that?"

"Arnica ointment," Foggy explains as he once again takes hold of Matt's chin with one hand and smears some of the ointment on Matt's bruised cheek with the other. Matt cannot help but lean into the touch. "Grams said it reduces bruising. Since now I get to see you come back from daredevilling every other night, I thought I should stock up."

Matt feels a pang of well-known guilt at that. Foggy doesn't deserve this, any of this; Foggy deserves a much better friend, a safer life, he deserves not having to worry all the time, he deserves so much better than what Matt throws at him, he deserves so much better than _Matt_. "Thank you," Matt says, and it's so woefully inadequate.

"I hate seeing you hurt." _Truth._ Foggy laughs suddenly. "I see you'll need a new coffee table. Again."

Matt smiles as well. "At least we spared the bedroom door this time."

"Good, 'cause I wouldn't fix it again. Once is enough." Matt chuckles, because that was a blatant lie and he didn't even need his senses to tell him that. Foggy always went around fixing things for him. "Wait. What do you mean 'this time'?" And then Matt realises that he never told Foggy about Stick's previous visit — or what it entailed — when Foggy's heart skips thump-THUMP-thump in anger. "He was here before," Foggy says slowly.

"Yes," Matt admits reluctantly.

"What did he want?"

Matt shrugs. "Same thing as always, to recruit me for his war."

Foggy tenses. "What _war_?" he asks.

"I don't know, he never quite manages to tell me."

They fall silent after that. Foggy takes his time massaging the ointment into the skin of Matt's cheek and then moves to the eye. He sighs and rests his forehead against the top of Matt's head for a second. Then he sighs again and, with a faux casual tone, says, "seriously though, you couldn't destroy the sofa? It's an abomination, not furniture."

"You don't have to keep sleeping on it if you don't want to," Matt finds himself saying, curious, he didn't give his mouth permission to move. "My bed's big enough for two."

Oh Christ. Murdock, you're in so much trouble.

"It's big enough for _three_ ," Foggy snorts. But he sobers quickly. "Matt--you're serious?" Matt nods. Well. Never let anyone say that he wasn't reckless and utterly stupid. In for a penny... "Like a sleepover?"

Matt shrugs. "Just like that semester when we pushed our beds together."

"It was a nice semester, even if the room was too cold." Voice still steady, heartbeat still steady. The idea doesn't make him nervous. He doesn't find in arousing. And why would he. "Well. Until you buy a new sofa."

"I'm not buying a new sofa."

"You're buying a new coffee table, might as well buy a new sofa." Matt laughs. If Foggy keeps complaining, he just might get a new sofa, after all. "So, what about that dinner? I'm starving."

They make the dinner, and Foggy even says yes to the broccoli. They sit by Matt's tiny kitchen table and eat the salmon and the broccoli, and Foggy tells him about the waste of time that the visit to the witness was. Matt frowns, at that. "You seemed happy when you came in," he notes. "You were humming, I assumed the talk was useful."

"Nah," Foggy shakes his head, "and I just shook my head." He still narrates most of their daily lives, despite the fact that he knows, now, that Matt can sense almost all of it. It's disarmingly nice and considerate, and Matt loves it. He loves the world according to Foggy Nelson. "I just stopped by my apartment. I almost have a ceiling again!"

"That's great," Matt says. It's not great. It's not great, because it means Foggy will leave, soon, will go back to his own place and his own life, and Matt's apartment will once again be just a big and empty space that he hates. That's not a good train of though. Time to change the subject. "Your grandmother called. She invites us for dinner on Saturday. She said she was making the macaroni and ham casserole."

"Aw, Grams, that's bribery. I'm rolling my eyes like a pro, by the way," Foggy informs him. "We don't have to go if you don't want to."

"Have you ever seen me say 'no' to your grandmother's macaroni and ham casserole?"

"Fair point," Foggy says, "it's a very good casserole. We still don't have to go. We could try and make our own at home."

We. At home. With an implied 'together'. "I've already tried," Matt says, "and I've concluded that your grandmother is the only person who can make it. So I want to go. Free food _et cetera_."

"If you're sure," Foggy says, shrugging. He clicks his tongue, then says, "oh, hey, Matt? Tell me, is Ray's nose still broken? Is the bone crooked now? Does he look even more horrible than before?"

"I don't know," Matt tells him, trying not to grin, "I didn't notice," he fails at the not-grinning and Foggy groans, "because I can't see."

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but you need to stop," Foggy murmurs. Matt presses a hand to his mouth and chuckles behind it. "World on fire doesn't extend to facial features?"

"No. Which you already know."

If he got a dollar for every time he wished he could see what Foggy looked like, the way he smiled, the expressions he wore, what colour were his eyes (blue, but what kind of blue?), he'd be able to pay off all his student loans and would still have a hefty sum left.

"Shame," Foggy sighs. "I hope it was a really gross break. I hope it looks awful. I hope it obstructs his breathing in sleep and that one day he just--" He cuts himself off. "Hmm. That kind of makes me sound like a homicidal vindictive asshole."

Matt doesn't need him to say the words to hear the implication. "You're nothing like him," he assures Foggy, putting on his best courtroom voice, full of conviction and surety. "You're, you're a good person. You're kind and generous and caring, and you're _nothing_ like him."

"Well, thanks for the compliment, buddy, but no need for that," Foggy says, faux serious. "I'm fully aware of my awesome. So _duh_ , of course I'm not. Was that ever in doubt?"

And his heart goes thump-thUMP-THUMP, and all Matt can hear is _lie, lie, lie_.


End file.
